I've been around here for almost ten years now, but I’ve steered clear of mining. Honestly, since my electricity costs are pretty high, I always thought buying bitcoins was a smarter choice than mining. But some things have changed lately, and I’m thinking about giving mining a shot. I know I’ll need to get an ASIC and figure out how to set it up.
So here’s my deal...
I recently got an electric vehicle, which means I’ve got a 240 volt 60 amp circuit installed in my garage. I also insulated the garage to keep some heat in. I live around Chicago where winter temps often hit -10 degrees Celsius. Right now, my garage has no heating service at all.
I’m hoping to set up an ASIC in my garage that not only generates Bitcoin but also produces enough heat to keep the temp above 0 degrees Celsius this winter. The idea is to have the ASIC act like a heater that covers its own electricity costs through the BTC it generates. By the end of winter, I’ll sell the ASIC (fingers crossed I at least break even on the electric bill), so my total heating cost would just be the difference between what I pay for the ASIC and what I sell it for.
I’m trying to figure out the efficiency (MHash per Joule) the ASIC should have in order to break even on the electricity costs given the current difficulty and Bitcoin exchange rate.
I never found an accurate combined calculator but it's been years so maybe improvements have been made?
Here is an old favorite for 2 data points
https://alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator
"Bitcoin Mining Calculator
Got your shiny new ASIC miner? Wondering when it will pay off? If you enter your hash rate below, this page will calculate your expected earnings in both Bitcoins and dollars over various time periods (day, week, and month). It will not attempt to extrapolate difficulty or price changes -- it provides only instantaneous calculations (how much you'd make if all conditions remained as they were right now)."
I check Bitmain from time to time and cost+ the power requirements always "astounds me"
https://www.bitmain.com
Here is a list with all ASIC miners, you can select them by algorithm, and it will show you the profitability https://www.asicminervalue.com/
They calculate a bit too optimistic.
What I would do is to select certain miners, enter their hashrate and power consumption along with your $0.13 /kWh into this website https://whattomine.com/asic (under ASIC SHA-256)
and this will give you accurate results on how profitable each miner truly is.
Danny go to viabtc.com
they show you what they pay per th.
about 35 cents of the top of my head.
So a s17 pro using braiins software can do 50 th at 2 kwatts
so 2 x 24 = 48 round to 50 kwatts a day. that is 50 x .13 or 6.50 a day
and 50 x .35 = 17. 50
17.50- 6.50 = 11 in the black. but costly to buy a s17pro.
two s9 set to 10th each will burn 1600 watts or about 40 kwatts a day that is 5.20 power cost
they earn 20th x .35= 7 a day
that is 1.80 in the black but much cheaper to buy.
Pm for more info.
Go to www.whattomine.com and go to the ASIC section and look for SHA-256 miners. My recommendation is that you need a "heater" not necessarily BTC. Go for a highly profitable model. The other thing is, once you start seeing the profits, you probably won't sell it. I would go with something like a Goldshell KD5 or an LT5 Pro or a S19J 100Th (rigs are high right now). So think long term. Winter is not a one time occurance so why sell in the spring? Keep it running and enjoy the profits year round!
Thanks everyone. I'll look into this a bit more and possibly send one or two of you a PM for additional information.
Agreed. I've thought about it some more, and even if I'm "mining at a loss" (electricity is costing more than I'm earning), it's still worth it to continue running the miner because I'm heating at a profit (spending about the same amount as I would have on running an electric heater, but gaining revenue, which a normal space heeateer would never do).
Since the primary goal is heating the garage, I'm starting to think that what I want is the ASIC that draws the most amps. That will be most effective at heating the space, and at that point ANY revenue is just a bonus.
The next step here is going to be figuring out where/how to purchase the equipment and how to avoid getting scammed.
You're probably right. If it works well enough, I might even convince some friends and/or family to heat normally unheated spaces this way.
I suspect that it's going to get way too hot in that garage in the summer to run an ASIC. I'm not interested in running extra cooling just to keep the ASIC running year round. Too much effort for too little profit.
Here is the thing. You don't want to go off of just "amp pull". You want to look at profit and how you want to leverage it. The other thing is, profit per amp is important, because once you get bit by the mining bug, you may want to buy another. So take watt / volt (240) = amps. Then divide the daily revenue by amps and get a $/amp ratio.
My most protifable miner right now is mid pack on the amp pull, so I actually bought another one last week. You will find your house to be amp constrained really really fast. Go for $ per amp ratio and let that be a guide for you.
You don't, just raise the garage door and put a box fan behind it. I live in Texas, the garage is 99 degrees so I flush out the heat (but I am moving to immersion cooling). You want the heater. If it gets "too hot" then just unplug it for a few months and come back!
The main problem with any calculation is it will be wrong tomorrow.
The price varies every day and the difficulty varies every 2 weeks.
The biggest winners this year are those mining last year with new equipment back then, that didn't switch off and sell their hardware due to such calculations.
The main point would be to not pay ridiculous high prices for miners, and ensure that your elec cost has a good expectation of being covered for a good distance into the future even if the price isn't much higher and also if the diff does go a lot higher.
Sounds like nonsense to me. Now I'm wishing I had made this thread self-moderated.
Thank you for uselessly repeating what has already been said by two other people in this thread.
Right now, I'm looking for a garage heater that earns a bit of Bitcoin to offset it's costs a bit. If it does a good job of keeping the garage above o degrees celsius throughout the winter, then I'll probably become more interested in helping friends and family do the same than in taking up mining for myself at any scale. Mining for any significant profit is an arms race that has never interested me, and most of the time it seems like I can get a better return purchasing bitcoin than purchasing mining equipment.
You may be right, I might change my mind once I get started, but for now I can only plan based on what I know about myself.
Thanks, I'm already aware of the relationship between amps, watts, and volts (as well as the many other units of power, work, energy, potential, current, resistance, etc).
At the moment, I think I'm probably more interested in the most effective heater. However, there are a few other variables to consider...
If two different pieces of equipment each emit roughly the same amount of heat and one of them costs significantly more to purchase (or to run), then the cheaper one is preferred.
It two different pieces of equipment each emit roughly the same amount of heat and one generates significantly more revenue, then the higher revenue is preferred.
Obviously those variable play against each other quite a bit. It's likely that I'll find that one unit costs more to purchase but ALSO generates more revenue. What I'm trying to figure out is how to balance those competing incentives.
Just to heat the unheated spaces? I doubt it.
None of that sounds appealing to me.
Yep, it will probably remain unplugged from March through October. It's possible I might decide to leave it running until mid-May.
The result of the calculation is constantly changing, but the formula should be consistent. If I can get the formula correct, then I can write some software to gather the inputs and text me when the result crosses a threshold. That way I'll know when to run it and when not to. However, now that I've come to the realization that I'll still want to run it even when it isn't profitable (since what I'm really looking for is a heated that simply offsets its operating costs a bit), the calculation that I initially asked about is no longer so important. Far more important is getting enough heat for a reasonable initial purchase price, and maximizing the revenue for a given amount of heat.
I'm well aware of how often the bitcoin exchange rate and the difficulty change. Initially, I thought I wanted to take that into consideration, but I now realize that neither of those really matter for this purpose.
I'm not looking to "win" any contest. I just want to heat my garage, but I'd like my space heater to earn as much bitcoin as it can.
This is what I have no experience with. I'm moving into this process slowly and carefully to try to avoid overpaying and avoid getting scammed.
As I said pm me for info. Basically you want a cheap used miner like an s9 .
you want it to run on firmware that allows it to be fairly quiet .
You want a decent price..
You do not need to know anything but what viabtc pays per th.
they pay 30.52 cents so a s9 set to 10 th earns $3.05 a day
https://www.viabtc.com/ will show you what it pays per th once you open an account
so $3.05 earned and burns about 20kwatts or $2.00 if you have 10 cent power
and about $3.00 if you have 15 cent power.
So a s9 at 300 bucks if you have 10 cent power is an okay deal
an s9 at 250 bucks if you have 15 cent power kind of works.
If your power is over 15 cents an s9 is not a good choice.
If your power is over 20 cents an s9 is a poor choice.
Good luck in what you pick.